A Very Dorky Dictionary

A friend and her daughter came round to visit the other day, and as the wee girl was standing in our kitchen I smiled at her and asked, “Would you like a fruitie? We’ve got pink or orange.”

She gave me a bemused look.

I laughed. “A smoothie, I mean, sorry! Not a fruitie!”
‘Fruitie’ is what DorkySon calls smoothies – I think it must be a contraction of ‘fruit smoothie’ and without even realising I’ve made it part of my own vocabulary. It set me off thinking about what other words and phrases we use that wouldn’t make much sense to people outside the family. There are probably hundreds of them, but here are my favourite five:

Noggy Knocker (noun). This is when you accidentally bang your head on something. A double noggy knocker is when you bang your head against someone else’s head. It can also be used as a verb, e.g. ‘Be careful not to noggy knock me please.’

DorkyCuddle (noun). A group hug involving me, DorkySon, DorkyDad and Binky. Usually instigated by DorkySon. Often followed by a Kiss Bomb.

Butt butter (noun). Nappy cream. This is another one that I’ve accidentally used outside of the family, provoking many giggles among the staff at DorkySon’s nursery.

My People (noun, collective). This is how DorkySon refers to his collection of stuffed animals. Regular calls of ‘Where are all my people? I can’t find all my people.’ can be heard in the DorkyHouse. I am only slightly worried by its dictatorship overtones.

Grand Sac (noun, derogative). I had never heard the insult ‘douchebag’ until I met DorkyDad, but it quickly became one of my favourites. A holiday in Paris, where there seems to be quite a high proportion of douchebags in the population, led to this French variation.

Being married to a man from Rochdale, we appear to be collecting lots of northern phrases. So desperate is he to ensure our Berkshire born daughter is aware of her northern roots, he has her saying words like “mardy”, “mint” and “brew”. I rather like it.

Love this! Especially noggy knocker.
We have Norman Tebbit sauce, which is a spicy pasta sauce. It started because my husband couldn’t remember the name of a jar of sauce we sometimes have (Lloyd Grossman). Now it can mean any pasta sauce, cue conversations that go, “what shall we have for tea? Pasta with Norman Tebbit?”.
We also have gitroy, for an idiot; twadge, for muck about (e.g. stop twadging with that paint!) and boobelies for blueberries because my daughter used to mis-pronounce it.

The only one I can think of is we have ‘huggles’. I’m sure we have loads more, but I can’t think of them now i’m prompted. I think they are so ingrained in our chatter that we’ve forgotten they’re our words. loved reading this x

Trousers have become “troozerbedoozers”, forehead has become “two head”, and rhododendrons are forever “dennyrondernods”. And my older child knows my pet names for him and his sister, so if I get it wrong and use his endearment for his sister, he has a hissy fit and screams at the top of his voice “No Mummy, I’M HUGGLE BUGGLES!”, which makes me laugh and gives me all the more reason to get it wrong regularly! Bad mummy!